Japanese Aircraft Carrier Hiyō

Hiyō was the name ship of her class of two aircraft carriers of the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN). Begun as the ocean liner Izumo Maru in 1939, she was purchased by the Navy Ministry in 1941 for conversion to an aircraft carrier. Completed shortly after the Battle of Midway in June 1942, she participated in the Guadalcanal Campaign, but missed the Battle of the Santa Cruz Islands in October because of an electrical generator fire.

The carrier’s aircraft were disembarked several times and used from land bases in battles in the South West Pacific. Hiyō was torpedoed in mid-1943 and spent three months under repair. She spent most of the next six months training and ferrying aircraft before returning to combat. She was sunk by a gasoline-vapour explosion caused by an American torpedo hit during the Battle of the Philippine Sea on 20 June 1944 with the loss of 247 officers and ratings.

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